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Collapse: The Movie has been created by the Maple Leafs over the final half of March, a full-length feature film that would have even the most ardent Leaf fan believing this club is either cursed or eternally inept in a way only a Chicago Cub fan would understand.

Eight consecutive defeats in regulation, including a clumsy 4-2 loss to short-handed Detroit on Saturday night, have destroyed an otherwise promising season in exactly the same way last spring’s historic third period collapse against the Boston Bruins turned the Leafs from plucky, never-say-die underdogs with a promising future into predictable screw-ups one more time.

Leaf execs and players maintained they could leave that horrific memory behind.

Instead, it now appears they had an even more spectacular pratfall in mind; the franchise’s worst losing streak in almost 30 years at the most critical juncture of the 2013-14 NHL season.

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Earlier this month, when the Leafs won two of three in California in very tough circumstances, they looked to be a safe playoff bet. Last Sunday, when they lost their fifth straight in New Jersey, it was at least possible to speculate that simply missing a playoff spot might not produce massive change in the Leaf organization.

Polls

Now? All bets are off, folks.

Everybody in this organization is in trouble. Nobody is safe, although GM Dave Nonis, signed to a new contract just last year, figures to be.

Team president Tim Leiweke, having seen positive change with Toronto FC and the Raptors in a short period of time, is unlikely to look at the smoking crater created by this eight-game Leaf collapse and suggest slow-and-steady is the correct approach.

That said, what other options does Leiweke actually have?

Really, the most radical course of action the Leafs could take now would be to decide their core — Dion Phaneuf, Phil Kessel, Joffrey Lupul, James van Riemsdyk, Jonathan Bernier — isn’t good enough and isn’t going to be, and strip this thing down to the wood.

Which would guarantee at least another five years of Oiler-like losing.

Hard to see anyone would advocate that.

The worst scenario would be for the Leafs to do what they almost always do — abandon young players not yet fully formed for short-term band-aid solutions they live to regret.

Really, you can change some of the faces, but the process if the Leafs are ever to become a quality team remains the same. This is the challenge of building a winning team in the salary cap era when you can’t simply spend your way out of trouble.

Teams — well, most of them — have to be incredibly patient and endure terrible growing pains, very difficult in a city like Toronto where the scrutiny is so intense, the last Cup was won in 1967 and where few seem to look around and understand how long it takes the build a winner.

These folks see the St. Louis Blues as the powerhouse they are now without any understanding of the awful disappointments and painful setbacks endured before they reached their current lofty status.

On Saturday night, the Leafs appeared to be in a relatively stable position to end their losing streak against the Red Wings early in the second period, owning a 1-0 lead on a goal by Cody Franson with a chance to possibly pad that lead with a power-play opportunity.

Instead, Kessel made an impossible-to-handle pass in the direction of Jake Gardiner high in the Detroit zone, and the puck squirted out to centre ice. Detroit centre Darren Helm, one of the fastest skaters in the league, easily created some separation and sped off on a breakaway. Bernier made the save, but after Gardiner recovered the puck, Helm poked it off his stick to teammate Joakim Andersson, who gave it back to Helm for an easy goal.

Then the roof fell in — again — and soon it was 3-1 for the visitors.

A terrific effort by Morgan Rielly late in the second teased Leaf Nation a little more. Dragged down to the ice, Rielly swiped the puck towards Lupul at the front of the net, and Lupul deposited the puck behind Jimmy Howard to make things interesting heading into the third.

But Helm got another breakaway in the third and drained that as the Leafs once more unloaded their six-shooters into their own feet.

Now only six games remain, and getting some noteworthy measure of success out of those games is probably the only way Carlyle can save his job.

If he still can.

The success of MLSE’s basketball wing in a season in which it was initially thought to be headed for a last-place finish just makes it worse for the Leafs, both internally and for those who watch this hockey club find new ways to fail year after year.

There was such joy in the Air Canada Centre on Friday night.

And such desolation and bitter despair 24 hours later when the hardwood was taken out and the ice revealed.

Much good has been done constructing this Leaf team in the past 18 months.

But a tendency to invent new mind-blowing ways to be humiliated in front of the hockey world makes all those good things mere footnotes.

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